30OCT2019 - NEWS - BHP's plan to turn shipping green

If shipping were a country it would be the sixth largest emitter of CO2 in the world, according to BHP which is about to announce its first LNG-powered ship.

It often amazes how long it can take big business to translate a quality intangible like a very good idea into practical, money-making reality.

It is coming up to three years now since Woodside Petroleum boss Peter Coleman revealed that Australia’s regional gas champion wanted to kick-start efforts to promote a domestic liquid natural gas market by committing to a break-bulk facility at its Pluto project in Karratha in Western Australia’s north-west.

This was a Field of Dreams moment. Woodside would build in the hope that a new generation of LNG-fuelled mining transport would come. So far, it hasn't, and that is good because the bunkering facility at Pluto is not expected to be ready until some time early next year.

But broader fulfilment of Coleman’s vision might be at hand.